Mom’s Easy Macaroni Salad

When it's hot, cooking has to be at a bare minimum, right? This quick and easy macaroni salad with hard boiled egg, roasted red bell pepper, onion, mayonnaise, and paprika gives new life to your standard issue picnic macaroni salad!

Photography Credit:
Elise Bauer

When you have a week straight of over 100°F temps, you start looking for cooler things to make. My mother makes this macaroni salad all summer long. She whipped up a batch earlier this week and I think I ate half of the bowl.

Think macaroni and deviled egg have a love child, and you’ll be in the vicinity of this macaroni salad. There is a hard boiled egg, some roasted red bell pepper, chopped spring onions, a generous amount of mayo, and seasoning with sweet paprika. It’s a perfect salad for a summer BBQ or picnic.

Roast your own: Alternatively, you can roast a fresh bell pepper by blackening it over an open flame on a gas range or broiling until the skin blisters on all sides. Remove from heat source, place in a bowl, cover the bowl, after a few minutes remove from the bowl and scrape off the blackened bits. Discard seeds and stem. You can find more instructions about this in our Marinated Roasted Bell Peppers Recipe.

Suggestions and Substitutions for Macaroni Salad

Swap out the macaroni for fusilli, ditalini, cavatelli, orecchiette, or any small-shaped pasta

Add chopped pickles or pickle relish (you can also put some pickle juice in the dressing!)

For some crunch, swap the roasted red peppers with fresh red bell peppers

For even more crunch, add chopped celery

Swap the spring onions or green onions for shallots or red onions (soak them in a little water with lemon juice or vinegar for a few minutes to soften their bite)

Method

1 Cook the pasta: In at least 2 quarts of salted water (1 1/2 teaspoons of salt per quart of water), cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente—still slightly firm. Remove from heat, drain and rinse with cool water until the pasta reaches room temperature.

2 Soak the onions: While macaroni is cooking, put the chopped onions into a small bowl and sprinkle the lemon juice or vinegar, and a little water over them. This will take the edge off the onions.

3 Assemble the macaroni salad: Combine cooked macaroni, onions, and all other ingredients in a large serving bowl. Adjust seasonings to taste.

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Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.

I just tried this recipe, and oh boy did it turn out well! It was my first time at tossing a macaroni salad, but your recipe made it really easy. I added diced chicken ham and some croutons too. It was lovely :)

Elise, if you’re looking to pacify regular onions — or even green ones — so they don’t take over and yet remain crunchy, you might let them rest in a bowl of cold water very lightly salted for about ten minutes after you chop them. Add a teaspoon of sugar, if you like, for extra sweetness.

loved when you said how much you could eat. My recipe similar to your except sweet pickle relish instead of roasted red peppers. SEVERAL times my friend and I after two helpings and eating again out of the refrigerator door simply decided that our diet would be ONLY the salad. IE Breakfast, lunch and Dinner we couldn’t get fat on just that ! I don’t know how we did but I didn’t care then and still don’t !

Hey Andy above, I was somewhat of the same opinion about cold pasta. Being gluten free, I wonder if that was my bod trying to tell me something. What I eventually discovered was that using smaller pasta for cold salads was much more appealing. Either the littlest open noodles or ziti or even spaghetti or vermicelli noodles broken into small bits is more appealing for me. They are usually quinoa or rice/corn pastas these days. Obviously there are a few gazillion human beings that are fine with traditional mac salads! Just imagine how many gallons of mac salad are consumed on a hot summer day?! Some of us just need to ‘make it our own’. I will also be adding pickled red onions when I try this recipe! Thanks Elise for helping us find tempting hot weather fare!

In the food processor, combine everything except the oil. Buzz until smooth. With the machine running, pour in oil in a slow stream. Taste. Adjust salt, herbs, etc. Add more oil if you think it’s needed. Add a bit of water if it needs thinning.

Enjoy the best mayonnaise you’ve ever eaten. And the next time you make it, it will be better!

Another knock out recipe! I followed your moms macaroni salad recipe to the tee and it is really really good -ok, I doubled it for a party. Also, I found the same jarred fire roasted peppers you mention at the supermarket -they were located in the same aisle as the jarred green olives. Thank you SOOO much for your wonderful recipes! Everytime I use one, it is always so good!